There are so many good reasons to grow your own food. It guarantees that you have access to the freshest and the most nutritious ingredients right at your very doorstep. Once you have tasted vegetables that have been picked only minutes before your eat them, you will never look back! It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to grow something from scratch, well a seed really, and I know that those broad beans now on my plate are free of chemical residues and are very good for my family. Growing your own food does save money too.

broad beans - harvest underway!

There are many different ways of growing vegetables, in containers, in ‘no-dig’ garden beds, in rotational plots or even just here and there in the garden beds that are in the back yard right now. I made a ‘no-dig’ garden bed a couple of years ago and have built up the soil over the years since. Before that I used pots, I figured to start small as I was short on both time and sunshine. Vegetables do need sun; the more the better. As a general rule, they need a minimum of six hours every day. So when choosing a position to grow your veges try to avoid things that create a shadow. I built a raised bed so the roots of nearby trees wouldn’t be competition for the veges and that has worked well.

But, you don’t have to wait until you have the ‘right’ spot or the time to make a special bed to grow a few veges – just start anyway with containers. It is an ideal option for people who are renting or for people who only have limited space available. Growing plants in containers also helps to overcome the problem of irregular shade, as pots can be moved to follow the sun over the course of the year. Just get on out there and enjoy!